


better, braver

by sleepinnude



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, First Kiss, First Person addressing Second Person, Getting Together, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Love Confessions, M/M, lyric prose, poetic prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude
Summary: I could leave it at that, let you think I mean it like family, like a brother. But there’s a wound high on my left side and it wasn’t a close call but I believe in metaphors and it’s close enough to my heart.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	better, braver

**Author's Note:**

> "you’re sitting across from me in a shitty diner in anywhere, america, and i watch you pour too much creamer in your coffee and i think “i love you.” you look up, catching me staring, and for a moment i think i’m brave enough to say it, but i take too long and the moment passes. i take the balled up straw wrapper and flick it at you, pretending that was my plan all along. you laugh. i never want to go another day without hearing that laugh. i think i will have all the time in the world to say it."  
> from this post [x](https://lesbiandomesticity.tumblr.com/post/159500355683/youre-sitting-across-from-me-in-a-shitty-diner-in)
> 
> fragments taken directly from that post are bolded in the piece.

**You’re sitting across from me in a shitty diner in anywhere, America and I watch you pour too much creamer in your coffee.** You do this now, drink coffee, and not just to have something to do with your hands, not just because you’re hanging out with humans so it makes sense to try and look human, act human. You drink coffee now, with too much creamer, because the caffeine affects you. You drink coffee now because sometimes you don’t sleep well at night and when we get an early start on the road, you need the kick to get going and I know all this because, I don’t tell you, but I hear when you have nightmares. Sometimes I stay up nights, listening for it. 

I’ve only asked you about it once and you startled like it was something to be ashamed of and told me you were just adjusting to sleeping (that was more than a month ago). If I were better, braver, I would sit down and talk to you about my nightmares. About hell, about Alastair, about Michael, about hellhounds, about the faces of those I haven’t saved, about being a hungry, scared, half-orphan in a thousand shitty motels across anywhere, America.

**I watch you pour too much creamer and I think “I love you.”**

It’s something I’ve known for - too long. I’ve felt it for over ten years, really, when you get down to it, known for it at least eight. If I were better, braver, I would have told you a long time ago. I would have gathered your hands together and met your eyes and told you after purgatory, or when you were human the first time, or after Lucifer and Amara, or when you, against odds, came back to us, or after we lost our son, or before Michael, or after purgatory again. I’ve never been all that brave, though, really, so I've just been sitting on it. 

(Hey, do you remember when you thought a demon was killing angels? When you needed me to interrogate Alastair and it meant digging something rank and rotten out of the core of me and you told me, your voice catching, that you would do anything not to have me do it? That was probably when I first felt it. I don’t think I knew it then. Did you?) 

**You look up, catch me staring, and for a moment I think I might say it.** I think I might finally tell you. Your eyes are on mine and the coffee cup is halfway to your mouth, frozen. You were in the middle of asking something, what time we’re meeting Sam, I think, but you’ve stopped to just watch me. **I take too long. The moment passes.**

I’ve never been all that brave, really.

Instead of telling you, my hand seizes around the crumple of my straw wrapper. I wad it tighter, let it drop, **flick it across the table at you.** It bounces off your nose and narrowly misses landing in your coffee. **You laugh.** That’s something you do more now, too. Laugh. It’s usually soft, practically soundless, but you duck your head and you smile and you exhale a little and I think my heart stops while you’re laughing. Probably because **I never want to go another day without hearing that laugh.**

 **I think I will have all the time in the world to say it.** I’ve had eleven years, after all, what’s eleven more? I’m not that brave after all, I never have been. It’s always been you with the bravery, with the faith, with the heart.

(Later, after the case, after Sam has hugged us and set back on his way toward the house he and Eileen share, you will kneel before me on a motel bed. The cut isn’t that bad, high on my ribs, but you’ll insist on checking it, cleaning it, patching it up. My breath will catch at the sight of your eyelashes fanned over your cheeks, the day’s stubble across your jaw, the small patch of grass-burn that sits at the crest of your cheekbone. I will reach out and thumb over the rubbed raw skin and you’ll lilt out a questioning hum. My hand will slide to cup your cheek fully and I will tell you, not out of bravery but more out of an inability not to tell you, in the quiet calm of the evening, _I love you, Cas._ And you will smile and lay your hand over the new bandage. You’ll say _I know that. I love you too, Dean._ And you’ll get up and turn and I could leave it at that, let you think I mean it like family, like a brother, like when you told me, when you were dying, and I couldn’t look you in the eye so you added on, _I love all of you._ But there’s a wound high on my left side and it wasn’t a close call but I believe in metaphors and it’s close enough to my heart.

(So I’ll jump to my feet and wrench at your hand. Turn you around. Lose my footing so we both topple a little, your back against the cheap drywall and my hands on your shoulders. And you’ll catch me staring and I think i will have all the time in the world to say it but I also have these next five seconds. So I will swallow and tell you, voice coming loose at the seams, _Cas, I love you._

(And I’ll hold my breath.

(And you’ll shift your palm from the padding on my side up to rest over my heart proper and you’ll say _I’ve loved you for a long time, dean._

(And i could say the same back, could tell you how it’s been years, how I almost told you this time or that time, how I almost told you the day before at the diner when you added too much creamer to your coffee and I could tell you that it’s been so long I don’t properly know when it started. But instead I just let my arms collapse a little, let my chin tuck in, let our lips meet.

(We have all the time in the world together.)

**Author's Note:**

> [rebloggable on tumblr!](https://sweatercas.tumblr.com/post/624285571184033793/saw-this-post-had-deancas-feelings-youre)


End file.
